TJ - The Publication for Learning and Development

The strategic trainer: developing strategy skills for the 21st century

By Sarah Cook (September 2004 Issue)
0 Comments Comments
Article Rating:

Poor Best

Email to a friend | Print Version

Most businesses do not have the luxury of being in a start-up position. Richard Branson is quoted as saying: ‘Our most successful companies are companies that we started from scratch.’ The majority of organisations operate in well-established industry sectors that are either mature or semi-mature. Whether you are working in a business from a start-up position or within a traditional enterprise, the majority of organisations have stated strategic intents. So what is strategy? There are a number of terms that organisations use to drive the business agenda.

  • Vision: a picture of a desired future state that is sufficiently appealing and compelling to drive change forward.
  • Mission: the purpose of the organisation.
  • Values: the underlying principles and ethics that drive the organisation.
  • Goals: the objectives or targets that the organisation is trying to achieve.
  • Strategy: the approach that the organisation is adopting to achieve the goals that support the strategy.
  • Behaviours: the way in which people in the organisation act in terms of what they do and say that brings the strategy and desired culture to life.

The ‘corporate diamond’ seen in Figure 1 explains the inter-relationships.

WHAT STRATEGY REPRESENTS
Strategy represents the pathway that has been chosen over a period of time to help the organisation achieve its business vision, mission and organisational goals. Strategy can be viewed as the route map to the future. A simple way of describing this is to imagine the organisation on a journey that has a constantly changing start point and end. To survive, the organisation needs to know the answers to these questions.

  • Where are we now?
  • Where do we want to be?
  • How will we get there?

 

We have only displayed above the opening paragraph of this article. If you are a TJ subscriber, login now so you can download a PDF of this article in full, free of charge. For non-subscribers the PDF can be purchased for £9.00 see the "Buy Now" Option above.

Click here for a free 30 day trial to Training Journal

Back to top | Current TJ

 

Readers Comment

Comment on this story here >

Be the first to comment on this news story